Description
Book SynopsisTimaeus is not an independent work. Rather, it is the premier dialogue in an unfinished trilogy that also includes Critias, of which we have only a fragment, and Hermocrates, which is forecast in Critias but was presumably never written. There is demand, and has been for some time now, for an account of the relevance between the extant parts of the trilogy, namely the pertinence of Timaeus' cosmology to Critias' war story. Over time this demand has been refined. There is now a more specific interest in the relevance of the cosmology to what is commonly known as Socrates' Requestthat is, what Socrates is asking of his interlocutors at the outset of the trilogy. While Charles Ives certainly addresses the former, more general demand, the primary concern in this book is with the latter, given the obvious aptness of Critias' contribution. Socrates, at least in part, is asking for a story about a war, and Critias provides it. What is far from obvious is how Timaeus' contribution fits into th
Trade ReviewCharles Ives’ Socrates’ Request is a clear and convincing explanation of the structure of Plato’s Timaeus as well as a persuasive argument that the education of philosophical warriors is a central theme of the dialogue. While making his case the author discusses many subjects of interest to students of the Timaeus, and his treatment of the relevant material is as thorough as it is intellectually stimulating. -- Mark Anderson, Belmont University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Socrates’ Request: Encomium, Education, and War 2. The Educational Program of the Timaeus in Outline: Medicine, Cause, and the Tripartite Structure of Timaeus’ Speech 3. Framing the Educational Narrative: Becoming Like God in Two Tasks 4. Motivating Education: Incarnation and Becoming Emphrōn 5. The Intellectual for the Sake of the Psycho-Political: Applied Mathematics, Force, and the Two Senses of Philosophia 6. Epilogue: Philosophy and the Warrior
